Buying power of R100 in 1980

This chart shows a calculation of buying power equivalence for R100 in 1980 (price index tracking began in 1957).

For example, if you started with R100, you would need to end with R3,181.29 in order to "adjust" for inflation (sometimes refered to as "beating inflation").

When R100 is equivalent to R3,181.29 over time, that means that the "real value" of a single South African rand decreases over time. In other words, a rand will pay for fewer items at the store.

This effect explains how inflation erodes the value of a rand over time. By calculating the value in 1980 dollars, the chart below shows how R100 is worth less over 44 years.

According to the OECD and the World Bank, each of these ZAR amounts below is equal in terms of what it could buy at the time:

This conversion table shows various other 1980 amounts in today's rand, based on the 3,081.29% change in prices:

How to calculate inflation rate for R100 since 1980

Our calculations use the following inflation rate formula to calculate the change in value between 1980 and today:

Then plug in historical CPI values. The South African CPI was 4.974656 in the year 1980 and 158.25803574504084 in 2024:

R100 in 1980 has the same "purchasing power" or "buying power" as R3,181.29 in 2024.

To get the total inflation rate for the 44 years between 1980 and 2024, we use the following formula:

Plugging in the values to this equation, we get:

Data source & citation

» Read more about inflation and investment.